Head coach Eric Tinkler highlighted the importance of Marc van Heerden as Cape Town City's "motivational leader" with the veteran defender tipped to play an instrumental role for the Citizens this season.
The impressive Van Heerden was a standout performer for City as Tinkler's side grabbed an important season-opening DStv Premiership 1-0 victory over a robust Polokwane City side at Athlone Stadium thanks to a 92nd-minute winner.
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The 35-year-old rolled back the years with an impressive display and could easily have been mistaken for a promising player - closer to being in his early twenties - tipped for a bright future.
Tinkler candidly revealed Van Heerden's importance to the Cape side off-the-field as well alongside his on-field performances.
"Thami [Mkhize] and Marc are extremely important for this squad," Tinkler said.
"To a degree, I had to fight with the chairman to keep Marc because I felt Marc still had a lot to contribute both on, but especially off the field.
"We have four leaders in our team, we have the task leader which there is more than one. So we have four or five players on the field that need to give the players the instruction.
"We have a motivational leader, that is selected by the players and is not selected by me, and Marc was selected by them, so it shows you how much they respect Marc van Heerden.
"We have the social leader, which is Darren Keet," Tinkler light-heartedly added. "Then we've got the club captain, which is Thami Mkhize.
"These are all chosen by the players, Thami plays a massive role and so does Marc."
Perhaps a perfect illustration of Van Heerden's influence on the Citizens squad came in the dying seconds of Sunday's dramatic win.
With Darwin Gonzales and Tshegofatso Nyama standing over the ball in what would probably be the last kick of the game.
It was Van Heerden who pointed to substitute Nyama to deliver a pin-point stoppage-time free-kick leading to the decisive goal before excitedly sprinting to embrace Nyama.
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